A variety of tools exist in the art for which are directed to accomplishing numerous tasks in the workplace and in areas of a household. Some tools, particularly those offered and used in the construction trade, for example, are directed to installing, preparing and finishing a variety of materials generally present in and incorporated into a residential or commercial structure, materials of which may include sheetrock, wood, plaster, and concrete. In the instance of installing and preparing sheetrock for finishing, a trade person, commonly known in the art as a sheetrock hanger or drywaller, may utilize a variety of manually and electrically operated tools, including common items such as a hammer, a utility knife, and a square for preparing the sheetrock for installation and an electric screw gun for driving specially configured screws inwardly into and through the sheetrock for secure attachment to framing members of a building structure. Once the sheetrock has been properly placed and anchored to the framing member to complete the structural aspects of a wall, drywall finishers, as commonly known in the trade, prepare the sheetrock for finishing, which generally includes filling in all anchoring screw locations and sealing all abutting ends of the sheeting rock present along corners and planar surfaces of the wall with a joint compound or a plasticized material. In most applications, a paper strip or tape is used in conjunction with the joint compound to control shrinkage at and reinforce the strength of the sheetrock joint for a seamless appearance. Once the paper tape and joint compound additive have been properly placed and secured to the sheetrock joint with joint compound, generally being applied by means of a taping machine or a banjo designed to hold and contain the joint compound for select, layered addition to the paper tape, and cured for a predetermined amount of time, generally to the manufacture's specifications, additional layers of joint compound are applied to smooth and even the finish of the sheetrock joint. In this instance of application, the drywall finisher, depending on his or her level of skill, may simply utilize a pan and knife for working the joint compound by hand to achieve the desired leveled appearance or use a manually operated tool that is specifically configured to contain and selectively dispense the joint compound onto the wall surface in a layered, uniform manner without the undue requirement of hand working the joint compound. In most sheetrock installations, joint compound may be re-applied after a set curing period to build up the sheetrock joint and screw locations to a sufficient level to permit further finishing of the sheetrock if deemed necessary.
After layering the joint compound to an acceptable level by the methodologies noted above, the drywall finisher generally undertakes a further step in the sheetrock finishing process, namely the removal of minute layered amounts of excess joint compound by means of a sanding device. This step further ensures the surficial blending of the sheetrock joint and each screw location with the planar surfaces of the sheetrock. Typical sanding devices or tools directed to accomplishing this step and offered in the art mainly operate under the principle of moving back and forth or vibrating a sanding element generally affixed to a plate and made movable by means of a motor or a person's hand. Manually operated sanding devices, such as those that are configured to fit within one's hand or palm or operate from afar using an extension pole, rely on most part on the user's trained eye and hand dexterity to achieve the desired leveled effect. The art offers a varied range of manually operated sanding devices, including those that simply comprise a foam block with angular or pitched sides covered or encased with a grit-like material or a more advanced form in the nature of a fixed planar or angular element affixed with a handle on one side and a rubber backing on the backside thereof to accept a removable sandpaper sheet and the like. An example of a fixed corner sander for addressing an exterior corner is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,789 issued to Amalfi and entitled “Corner Sander.” Devices in this classification tend to be used by both the novice and the professional given their simplicity of use, low cost, and availability. However, many of these types of devices inherently lack a capability to conform to differing angle configurations. Other manually operated devices may comprise more advanced features that may enable one to re-configure the planar element to correspond to the angular orientation of the work surface, for example, an inside 90 degree corner. An example of such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,370,060 issued to Smith and entitled “Trowel,” which teaches a pair of planar elements hinged together along a common side and connected to handle assembly having adjustable structural supports that allow the planar elements to move from a flattened position to an angular position capable of addressing an inside corner of varying degrees. Although this device allows for adjustability, the angular range is limited to addressing interiorly configured corners and planar surfaces and not necessarily an outside corner.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a device that easily adjusts to inside and outside corners as well as planar surfaces of the type typically found in commercial and residential building structures and possesses the direct capacity to perform operations of finishing, cleaning, sanding, painting, scrubbing, abrading, and polishing a material work surface.